


Tony Stark and the Subterranean Escapade

by Veldeia



Series: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo 2016 [3]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Noir
Genre: 1940s, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caves, Established Relationship, France (Country), Historical References, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Infinity Gems, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:33:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia/pseuds/Veldeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon after the end of the War, a French cave explorer contacts Tony for help concerning a mysterious artifact found deep underground. It's time for a new era of adventures for the hero of Marvels, together with his friends, including a certain war-time acquaintance named Steve Rogers, with whom he has grown quite close.</p><p>Bingo fill for the prompt "Infinity Gems (Make Life Difficult)”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tony Stark and the Subterranean Escapade

**Author's Note:**

> I love Noir, but I tend to worry about how limited my knowledge of 40’s history is. However, it occurred to me while reading a lovely Noir story that referenced a cave adventure that there is one particular, obscure field of history that I do know something about: the history of cave exploration! I highly recommend [the story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5869201) that inspired this one, and thank you, [Woad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Woad/pseuds/Woad), for writing it and giving me ideas! :D
> 
> Beta thanks to [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector) and [navaan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan), who assured me it's fine when I worried that there might be too much cave detail here! :)

#### Prologue

Tony first met Pascal Cochet during the war.

It was one of several covert assignments he’d had in France, cooperating with the Maquis du Vercors, a resistance group that operated in the mountainous regions close to Grenoble.

Pascal wasn't one of the Maquis, but he was a mountaineer, and had his contacts in the resistance. Tony had heard his name before: he was among the foremost cave explorers in the world, as well as a respected scientist—a chemist, to be exact—and although Tony had been attempting to keep a low profile, he’d been unable to keep his mouth shut when a chance encounter landed them in the same inn.

They got along splendidly. Tony described the handful of natural caverns he'd come across during his adventures, mainly in Southern America, which clearly intrigued Pascal. In turn, Pascal told of his exploits in the Dent de Crolles, the cave system in the nearby Chartreuse Mountains. Even a world war had not kept him and his close-knit group of intrepid speleologists from their project.

"One day, I'm telling you, Mr. Stark, the Dent will be the deepest cave in the world," Pascal said. Unlike many other Frenchmen Tony knew, he never raised his voice, but always stayed calm and collected, even though the excitement was evident in his eyes. "The geology is plain as day. It's only a matter of time when we will find a way down to the Guiers Mort from the top of the plateau."

"When you do," Tony said, "and when the world has become a more peaceful place again, I would love to pay you a visit."

"I'd be honored to be your guide," Pascal promised. "Although I daresay our mundane tunnels might not be as enticing to someone used to outlandish treasures and fantastical creatures."

"The world's deepest cave sounds fantastical enough to me—easily a story that could find its way to the pages of the Marvels," Tony declared. "So, what kind of obstacles stand in your way, before you can call it that?"

Pascal launched into a detailed account of the practical issues they faced, ranging from passages filled with silt and loose boulders to scaling tall vertical shafts with no good handholds on the walls, often made even more inhospitable by icy cold waterfalls. Tony listened raptly. He had sometimes run across similar challenges in his travels, and with his penchant for all things technological, was eager to learn how they planned to tackle them.

"Ah, do you have another hour to spare, Mr. Stark?" Pascal asked suddenly. "I would like to introduce you to one of my friends. He is even more of an expert in these matters than I am."

Tony did, indeed, have the evening off from anything pressing, and that was truly serendipitous. The friend Pascal took him to see, Felix Peletier, was definitely a man after Tony's own, mechanically supported, heart. Felix had a shed full of gear designed with a single-minded focus on conquering the highest mountains and the deepest caves. There were ladders made of different materials, telescopic scaling poles that could be broken down into easily carried sections, nylon ropes far lighter than any Tony had ever used, and, most intriguingly, a set of metallic clamps that could be used to climb a rope even if it was hanging freely in space without touching the rock at all.

"I cannot take credit for inventing them," Felix told him. "But I have been attempting to perfect them. We have used them underground on a few occasions. Climbing with them is tedious, but it has its advantages."

"I can definitely see that. It's a great idea," Tony said, nodding. How had that never occurred to him? It was an obvious thing to do, now that he looked at the gear. It would definitely have come in handy in many situations where he'd had to pull himself up a rope hand over hand, with no safeguards if his strength should fail.

Once they had made it through this damnable war, Tony told himself, maybe there would be time for adventures again, and then he could look into this some more.

*********

Steve first met Tony Stark during the war.

He had heard of Tony before, of course—there were few people who hadn't—but reading the adventures published in Marvels had done nothing to prepare him for the real deal. He’d expected someone brash and full of tall tales, and that was definitely one side of Tony, the face he often chose to show in public. But no printed page had been able to truly capture his fierce intelligence, the intense way he got involved in everything he set his mind on, or the impossible depth of his blue eyes.

They made for a great team. They were both brilliant tacticians, and fearless in battle. What Tony lacked in agility, wearing his cumbersome armor, Steve could compensate for, thanks to the serum. When firepower was required, Tony would provide it. Together, the two of them could take down entire platoons.

There were certain unexpected advantages to the desperate situations they found themselves in: if it hadn't been for the shared assignments they had ended up on, they would never have become such close friends.

They would never have ended up in each other's arms, cold, wet, injured, and unsure of how they'd make it back to base in one piece.

They certainly wouldn't have ended up kissing, or sharing a bed whenever the situation allowed for it.

They had to be careful, of course. They both had their secret identities: Captain America was a figurehead unlike any other, and Iron Man, a technological miracle. In public, those two were nothing but colleagues, and they had no connection at all to Private Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, the inventor behind the armor—who in turn were definitely not in a relationship of any sort.

Just as the war had brought them together, however, it also kept pulling them apart. There was no certainty about their next meeting, and each time they said goodbye might've ended up being their last.

Waiting for their next shared mission was one of the things that kept Steve going. If he made it through this particularly difficult one, maybe the next assignment would be with Tony. When it was, suddenly things made more sense. They weren't only fighting for freedom and justice. They were also fighting for this. To be with the ones they loved.

Though Steve would never admit it to anyone, he did worry, somewhere deep down, about what would happen when the war ended. Surely the two of them couldn't go on like this. Tony would go back to his old life, and Steve couldn't imagine there being a place in it for him. This was a relationship born of a constant struggle to survive.

And the war did end, of course, eventually. Captain America returned home, victorious, as did Iron Man.

They kept seeing one another afterwards. It was always as secretive as their wartime encounters had been—a shared afternoon here, a nice dinner there, a night or two in the same bed—but as Steve had feared, it wasn't quite the same. Less intense, less passionate. And he couldn't help but wonder whether it was because of him or Tony. Maybe Tony was having second thoughts; maybe it had only been a diversion for him during the war. Or maybe Steve, whose very body was a creation of military science, simply didn't know how to enjoy things without the constant threat of battle hanging over his head.

He didn't want to talk about it to Tony. His worst fear was that maybe Tony's mind was with someone else, and he wasn't sure if he could take hearing that. He did still cherish the time they spent together, even if it didn't feel quite as exciting as before. The one thing he was certain about was that no matter what, he did not want it to end.

*********

Things had not yet quite settled into any kind of a status quo after the war when Tony got the call. He'd been making plans to get back to adventuring, but none of them were close to concrete yet. As tended to happen when there was nothing particularly interesting going on, he was starting to go a little stir-crazy.

The odd in-between state he was stuck in with Steve didn't help. It had been painfully obvious to him since the very beginning that their arrangement had been a temporary one. Surely Steve had only sought for a moment's respite from the battles, and once he was home again, he would find someone else, someone better, most likely a dame. Someone he could be seen with in public, that he could settle down and start a family with.

The one thing that Tony couldn't understand was why Steve still seemed to want to spend time with him. He never turned down an invitation, but when they met, Steve always seemed distant. Most likely he wanted to end it, but didn't want to hurt Tony. That would be so like Steve. Maybe Tony should’ve just done it himself, to spare Steve from feeling that he was being mean, but he couldn't bring himself to. He liked Steve too much.

Amidst all of this, the unexpected transatlantic radio-telephone call felt heaven-sent. Something tangible that he could do. Finally.

He picked up the receiver, and was greeted by a polite baritone with an obvious French accent. "Monsieur Stark? It's Pascal Cochet. Perhaps you remember me, from Grenoble? 1943?"

"Ah, Pascal! Of course I do. Please, just call me Tony. What can I do for you?"

"I hope I'm not being too forward with this, Tony, but the thing is, we could use your help," Pascal said, his hesitation evident over the line.

"With your world's deepest cave, I presume?"

"We still can't call it that, I'm afraid. We have yet to make that connection. However, we have made other discoveries." Pascal lowered his voice conspiratorially towards the end. 

"Oh? What kind of discoveries would those be?" Tony asked, intrigued.

"I would prefer not to go into details over the radio. Let me just say that, knowing your history with unusual and mysterious things, I expect you would be much better prepared to handle this than any other acquaintance of mine."

Pascal did not need to ask twice: clearly whatever they'd found had to be extraordinary for him to contact someone halfway across the Globe for help. Tony was curious, and relieved, to have a solid reason to travel to Europe as soon as possible—Pascal had hinted that whatever they had found might be of interest to other, less amiable people, and if that wasn’t enough of a reason to hurry, the cave would be much more difficult to reach once winter arrived.

Tony started making arrangements as soon as he had finished the call. No time like the present! Pepper would be coming with him, of course, and Jarvis, though he wouldn't follow them underground. Tony hoped Rhodey would join in, as well—he'd reluctantly admitted that he sometimes missed these excursions. Then, there was Steve.

Although the war was over, Captain America still had duties. A lot of them were ceremonial, though, and Tony was fairly sure Steve could get a few weeks off, if he wanted to. It could be really good, to have Steve with them on a proper expedition. It wouldn't be like their shared missions during the war, but at least it'd be different from these lukewarm meetings in town. Even if things didn't work out afterwards, and most likely they wouldn't, at least Steve would get to see how Tony's life had been before the war, and why he had, most of the time, enjoyed it very much, even if it had been driven by a rather desperate cause.

To his delight, as soon as he had finished describing the situation to Steve, he received a very eager "Sounds swell! When do we leave?" as a reply.

So it was that Tony Stark and his fearless friends set out on an all-new adventure, mere months after the war had ended.

  


************************

  


_October 19, 1945  
approaching Grenoble _

_After a few weeks of preparations and several days on the airship, we have finally reached France. In a few hours, we will land, and by the same time tomorrow, we will be on our way to the dark depths. There are four of us on this intrepid team: Mr. Stark, of course, as the driving force behind the expedition; James Rhodes, his stalwart companion throughout the years, a voice of reason to Tony's sometimes foolhardy ways; Steve Rogers, a newer acquaintance that Tony met on the battlefields of the European Theatre who has since grown quite close to him, and is also a skilled artist; and of course myself, Pepper Potts, here to record every moment of our underground venture._

_Tony has, during our flight, taken it on himself to remind us repeatedly that what we will face is going to be different from anything we have seen in our previous adventures. He has been to many caves, as has Rhodey—Steve and I, not quite as many—but they have all been partly man-made, places of worship, sometimes meant to be accessed only by the highest priests or the gods themselves, but still, places made by men. The cave that we are to confront in the Chartreuse Mountains, the Dent de Crolles, is nothing like that. Rainwater has eroded those tunnels from limestone, and there is no reason for any of them to be passable by men, other than pure chance. In flood, they can become utterly impenetrable, leaving one stranded, if not drowned. There will be no light except for what we bring ourselves. Cold will be a constant threat. In case of accidents, rescue will be well nigh impossible. It is good that we have skilled local explorers to guide us: without them, we might not be able to make it very far at all, no matter how seasoned a group of adventurers we might be._

*********

The days spent on the airship with Tony and his friends, crossing the Atlantic, felt bittersweet to Steve. It was nice not needing to hide their relationship at all, and on the surface, everything seemed fine between them—but he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't. Steve kept thinking they should talk things over, but in such confined quarters, where they couldn't avoid seeing one another, it might not have been the best of ideas. Once they stepped out of the vessel in Grenoble, those thoughts were mostly left behind, replaced by curiosity and anticipation.

From the quiet airfield, they continued onwards in Pascal Cochet's battered, sputtering jeep. Pascal was far less boisterous than Steve would've expected from a renowned French adventurer. Next to Tony, he seemed like a more subdued and unassuming mirror image, since their looks were quite similar: Pascal's dark hair and mustache were only slightly thinner than Tony's, his eyes dark instead of blue. The contrast felt even greater because Tony had been so excited about this trip, livelier than Steve had seen him in months. He was back in his element and enjoying it, and seeing that made Steve happy, too.

They climbed higher and higher on winding mountain roads, up towards the peaks of the Chartreuse, leaving the city far below. Tony, seated in the front next to Pascal, was interviewing him eagerly about his latest underground achievements. Steve, Pepper and Rhodey were packed like sardines at the back. The noise of the car and the fact that the conversation took place in French meant that Steve couldn't quite follow it. Steve spoke the language fluently and understood it near perfectly, but following a rapid conversation where he could only make out every third word was at the limit of his abilities. Thus, the three of them spent most of the trip pointing out particularly impressive views to one another. There were plenty; across the valley, on the other side of Grenoble, rose two other mountain ranges, the Vercors and the Belledonne, going on all the way to the horizon. The highest, snow-capped summit in the distance could only be Mont Blanc.

Late in the afternoon, they reached Saint-Pancrasse, a small huddle of buildings overshadowed by the sharp, pale limestone peak of the Dent de Crolles, the mountain with the cave system carrying the same name. _Dent_ meant tooth, which Steve found a fitting name for it.

As they filed out of the jeep at the doorstep of the small house where they were to spend the night, they were greeted by the other the French cave explorers that would be joining them for this expedition. There was Felix Peletier, their gear specialist and Pascal's good friend, who seemed to share his mild disposition, and a young woman by the name of Adele Berger, who was introduced as a geology student and the most daring adventurer of them all.

"For her and Claude, very few crevices are too narrow," Pascal said, an unmistakable touch of pride in his voice. "Speaking of which, where is Claude? I thought he would be here as well."

"No word of him," Adele replied. "Perhaps he's been delayed; I'm sure he'll join us later."

"Tomorrow, at the latest," Felix added. "He wouldn't miss this. He was there when we found it, after all."

"So, since we're going to crawl inside that mountain tomorrow to look for 'it', now would be a good time for you to tell us what 'it' actually is," Rhodey put in, sounding a little irritated. Steve felt the same way: unlike Tony, who seemed to relish the uncertainty and mystery, or Pepper, who took it in stride, knowing they'd find out sooner or later, Steve didn't like taking part in a mission when he lacked crucial information.

Pascal gave Rhodey an apologetic look. "Ah, you see, we can't claim to know the answer to that. If we did, we wouldn't have called you in. I believe you'd call it an artifact." His eyes skimmed the surroundings nervously, as if expecting a spy to be hidden in the nearby hedge. "As a man of science, I hesitate to use this word, but it almost seems magical."

"Whatever it is, it's obviously powerful and probably dangerous," Felix added gravely.

"But come, this isn't a matter to be discussed on the patio. We can talk about the details after dinner," Pascal said, breaking the tense mood, and gesturing at the open door.

Their accommodation was cozy, a simple country hut with a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. With seven people sharing the space, it felt crowded, but they were all well used to that, and they could all fit around the large, sturdy table in the living room to enjoy the meat stew Adele and Felix had cooked.

Once they had finished the meal and cleared the table, Pascal produced a large paper scroll, spreading it on the table to reveal an intricate, hand-drawn map of the cave system they were about to delve into. 

"There are two entrances, as well as a number of caverns on the eastern face and shafts high up on the plateau that we are certain will connect to it. The one we will use tomorrow is this," he tapped at a point in the middle of the bottom edge of the map. "Trou du Glaz, mid-level between the mountaintop and the lower entrance at Guiers Mort. It's the fastest and easiest way to reach our goal, which is here," Pascal said, moving his finger to a wide passage at the top of the map. Unlike most of the other lines, which had been carefully drawn with a black marker, the area close to their destination was a roughly penciled sketch.

"How fast is fast? How long would you say we're going to spend underground?" Tony asked. That was, obviously, an important consideration for him. He'd charged his repulsor pump this very morning on the airship, which meant that shouldn't be an issue, unless they needed to spend several days inside the mountain.

"The three of us plus Claude could easily get there in three hours," Pascal said, indicating himself and the other French cavers. "But we have done the trip countless times, and seven will inevitably be much slower than three. I expect we'll need five. Five hours to get there, however long you want to study our find, and then around eight for the return trip, depending on how good you are with ladders. It will be a long day, but if we start early, we should be back before midnight. And we had better be; the forecast says there might be a storm coming, and we do not want to be underground when it hits."

Thirteen hours, at the least. That was longer than Steve had expected, but his experience with caves was limited, and the confusing tangle of lines on the map definitely demonstrated that the system was vast and complex. At least the timespan was well within safe range for Tony, which Steve was glad about.

"Nothing like the threat of getting washed out by rainwater to keep us pushing on!" Tony said cheerfully, leaning closer to the map to peer at the entrance Pascal had pointed out. "So, we go in through here. Then what? What's the route like?"

Pascal took them through their planned underground route, with occasional additions from Adele and Felix, and questions from Tony, Rhodey and Pepper, who all seemed well informed on matters speleological, even in French. A lot of the vocabulary they used was unfamiliar to Steve, but from what he gathered, they'd mostly be going down ropes a lot, with a few narrow sections in-between. None of the others appeared in the least daunted by any of it.

The conversation never went back to the mysterious artifact, and none of them pressed the subject. They would find out tomorrow. Instead, the route planning led them to the practical matter of sorting out their gear. It was easy enough to unpack the helmets and electric lights Tony had provided for them, as well as the durable, warm clothes they had picked, but there was also a prodigious amount of nylon rope and lightweight metal ladders that the Frenchmen had brought, all of which they needed distribute among themselves and pack so they could carry it up the mountain.

By the time they were finished, the sun had disappeared below the mountainous horizon, and since the plan was to wake up early and be on their way at six, it was time to call it a day. They unanimously decided that the two women should take the bedroom, with the men left to choose their preferred spots on the living room floor. Steve picked one right next to Tony, and when the lights went out, his hand found its way to Tony's shoulder. Clearly less worried about anyone noticing, Tony curled up against him, and in a sleeping bag on the hard, slightly chilly floor, Steve fell asleep faster than he had in many a nice bed he'd slept in recently.

  


************************

  


_October 20, 1945  
Saint-Pancrasse_

_After a cordial welcome by the French cave explorers and a well-slept night in a charming country hut, we woke up at the brink of dawn, refreshed and ready to go. The weather is so beautiful, with a perfect cloudless sky, rare for this time of the year, that the thought of a thunderstorm striking tonight feels very distant. But we are not going to ignore it; that would be foolish. It sets a schedule for our trip, one that we must pay close attention to. No matter how exciting that artifact we are looking for turns out to be, we will turn back with enough time to return safely, before that storm reaches the mountains. I can imagine us having to bodily drag Tony away from it. Luckily both Rhodey and Steve can easily manage that, if need be!_

_In our rucksacks, we will be carrying between us some 900 feet of rope, and a few hundred feet of aluminum ladders. These will see us through the many vertical shafts on the way. Those I expect be the easiest and most straightforward part of the route: as our guides, Mr. Cochet, Mr. Peletier and Miss Berger have told us, there will also be many sections where we will need to crawl on all fours, or slither through the narrowest of vertical cracks. It sounds like a welcome sort of challenge for me: for once, those of smaller size will hold the advantage!_

*********

Tony wasn’t particularly fond of early mornings, but when he woke up to the alarm clock at five and realized what awaited them, he was suddenly wide-awake and raring to go. After a quick but copious breakfast, they gathered all their bags—with Steve carrying three times as much as anyone else, of course—and set off into the crisp morning.

The only sour note to the near-perfect start of the day was the inexplicable absence of the fourth French caver, but there was nothing to be done about that. The explanation would most likely be entirely mundane, anything from family issues to transport troubles. They weren’t going to sit around and wait for him; Claude would understand that they’d want to keep to their pre-planned schedule, for several reasons.

As was often the case in the mountains, the summit of the Dent seemed deceptively close. The reality of the distance dawned when the first hour of walking up a steeply inclined forest path barely seemed to bring it any closer. They weren't moving very fast, heavily laden with water, snacks, ropes and ladders.

The way only grew steeper as they approached the mountain. They reached a wide grassy slope, the narrow path climbing up it in switchback turns. Though it was a cool late autumn morning, Tony was starting to feel the warmth of the first sun rays, and he was glad he'd chosen to carry his thick waterproof oilskin clothes strapped on top of his pack instead of wearing them.

"I can only imagine how hot this would be in the summer," he noted aloud, wiping sweat off his brow.

"Ah, yes, a necessary evil that we always face. We call this the Meadow That Kills," Pascal noted cheerfully.

The two Frenchmen weren't moving any faster than Tony; Pascal was slightly ahead of him, Felix right behind. Pepper and Rhodey clearly had no particular need to try and impress anyone with their speed, but were following Felix, stopping every now and then to study some plant growing by the path or to admire the view, with a number of mountain peaks around them. Steve was at the head of the convoy, together with Adele, who was skipping uphill as light and fast as a mountain goat. She was making Tony feel old.

The zigzags up the fittingly named near-vertical meadow seemed to go on for miles, but eventually, they reached the foot of the bare cliff face that made up the top plateau of the mountain. There, the path turned horizontal, though it did not get much easier. To their right was the cliff, to their left, a sheer drop of several hundred feet to the grassy valley below. A misstep here could have dire consequences, and in wintertime, one would most likely require crampons to follow the path with anything resembling safety. Even Adele and Steve, who had stopped to wait for the others at the start of the path, moved more slowly and cautiously as they continued onwards.

"Reminds me of that place in the Andes," Rhodey noted from behind Tony.

"Yeah, it does, doesn’t it," Tony returned. "Just without the mud, the rockfall, and the Nazis pursuing us."

"We do get rockfalls, and mud when it's been raining," Felix said. "The Nazis, luckily, never bothered to climb up here."

The narrow mountain path crossed several rocky patches where they needed to use hands as well as feet, and some steep sections where they found themselves reaching for the twiggy trees by its side for safety. Finally, it brought them to a wide, level terrace with a dark opening leading into the side of the mountain, its mouth at least seven feet high and more than twice as wide.

"Here we are, ladies and gentlemen! Trou du Glaz!" Pascal announced, like an antiquarian presenting the prize item of his collection.

They quickly pulled on the rest of their clothing, encouraged by the icy draught blowing from the cave entrance, and headed into the darkness. Adele still had the lead, but now Tony took the place right behind her, eager to be at the head of the procession. The flame of her carbide lamp painted the dark rock around them a warm, flickering yellow, unlike the colder electric light of Tony's headlamp. Steve was right behind him, leaving Pepper, Rhodey, Pascal and Felix at the back.

Tony didn't think he'd been this excited since before the war. This was the sort of quest he preferred: no fighting and needless loss of life, just the thrill of discovery, of places rarely visited by any living soul. He glanced back at Steve, who met his wide grin with a more cautious smile. They had been through so many hairy situations together, Tony kept forgetting that this wasn't as familiar territory to Steve as it was to him.

The first passages they traversed were easy enough, just as Pascal had promised the day before: the large, boulder-floored tunnel went on for several hundred feet until the ceiling lowered so that they had to go down on all fours for a few paces. After that, some scrambling, and a narrow vertical crack a few feet in length, they found themselves at the brink of a shaft that seemed to dive into the depths. There was a ledge visible some 30 feet below, where the passage turned a corner, but he knew it would become vertical again right after. At the lip of the shaft, there was a massive metal ring hammered into the rock as an anchor point for rope.

The rest of the party soon emerged to gather at the top of the shaft as Adele crouched to thread a rope through the ring.

"Now, this is getting exciting," Pepper exclaimed, flashing a smirk at Tony.

"Like the good old times," Rhodey said.

"I'm sure we've seen nothing yet!" Tony said.

The rope was soon in place, and they set off again, sliding down in mountaineer-style _rappel_ , with the rope looped around the body for a controlled descent. It was a technique they had all used before on one occasion or the other, and their thick clothes helped to make it more comfortable. They kept their earlier marching order as they went down, except that Tony let Felix go before him, so he could continue ahead with Adele to set up the next ropes.

Making his way down the rocky shaft in perfect silence was simultaneously the most thrilling and the most relaxing thing Tony could imagine. There was nothing but the cold, wet rock around him, its cascading calcite surface a mix of white and different shades of brown; the inviting, unknown depths beneath, and the small circle of light provided by his lamp. He didn't really care what kind of artifact the Frenchmen had found. Even if it turned out to be some worthless trinket, this visit would have been well worth it.

Just as Pascal had described, there were three shafts in close succession: the Lantern Pitches, each one roughly the same height, and easy to descend. At the bottom of the third pitch was a tiny, rather uninviting chamber, with an icy cold trickle of water dripping from the ceiling. When Tony landed there and shouted at Steve that the rope was free, there was no sight of Adele and Felix. They must have gone on to the next shaft. It was supposed to be impossible to miss.

He sat down on a rock that was as far from the cold shower as he could get in the restricted space, turned off his lamp to conserve electricity, and waited for Steve. It was like watching a miniature sunset, with the bright light first appearing far above him, then slowly descending closer, growing from a tiny point to a bright glow that lit every corner of the small space.

Steve hit level ground and faced Tony with an expression that might've been either terrified or exhilarated. Possibly a mix of both. He covered the few steps to Tony, who stood up, and as there was no one else around, went for a kiss. The bulky helmets made it awkward, but their lips still found their way together. It was a cold, wet and slightly muddy—like the best kisses often had been, for the two of them.

"Well, what do you think?" Tony asked as they separated.

"Not quite like anything I've done before," Steve said, shaking his head. "But I think I'm starting to see the appeal."

Another light was approaching them, and soon Pepper reached the ground, too. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asked with a knowing look.

The small space was getting rather crowded, especially if one wanted to avoid getting drenched.

"Should we move on?" Steve suggested. "I'm sure Rhodey and Pascal will catch us in no time."

"We'd better, it's not too warm in here when sitting still," Tony agreed. Even feverish thrill of adventure wasn't quite enough to keep the chill at bay, and he was starting to feel it creeping up on him, a concrete reminder of how hostile this place could be.

The way on was to duck into the low passage in one wall, and from there, the going was considerably less enjoyable than it had been in the rope pitches: the tunnel was constantly so low that they had to move either at an awkward crouch or on all fours. As if it wouldn't have been tedious enough otherwise, their cumbersome packs kept getting stuck on every tiny protrusion on the ground. Annoying protrusions aside, the floor was mostly covered in a thin layer of mud, until they reached a walking-height passage where it turned into a proper mud puddle, more than ankle deep in places, that they had to wade through.

Once they'd crossed the mud and reached a larger space where they could see the warm lights of Adele and Felix's lamps in front of them, the only one who was still smiling was Pepper, who had had the easiest time in the small passage.

"I can't wait for the next tedious society event we must attend," she noted brightly. "The looks on the faces of the other ladies when I describe this to them will be priceless!"

They met the two French cavers briefly at the top of yet another rope leading down, the fourth and last of the Lantern Pitches. Adele and Felix hurried ahead, leaving the three of them to descend at their own pace. Tony offered the others the chance to lead for a change, with Pepper going first, and Steve following her. At the tail of the group, he was still waiting for his turn when Rhodey and Pascal caught up with them.

"Hello! Everything all right at the front?" Pascal greeted as they got into speaking range.

"Fine! Splendid, even!" Tony replied enthusiastically. "And a fine cave you've got here, everyone seems to be enjoying it so far."

"I can see that you are! We stopped for a bit at the bottom of the previous pitches to leave a ladder there for the return trip, and we thought you might pop out on the other side of the mountain before we caught you," Rhodey joked.

Then, it was Tony's turn to go down the pitch, after which a brief stretch of walking brought him to the next rope. This was the longest one they'd descended so far, in a very impressive circular shaft over 100 feet in depth. Two shorter ropes followed instantly, taking him down the side of a charming little waterfall. There, the procession had come to a halt again, with Adele and Felix waiting for everyone. It wasn't the most comfortable place to stop; larger than the previous chamber where he'd sat for a while, with a lofty ceiling beyond the reach of their lights and enough room for ten people to stand, but freezing cold with a continuous breeze and a spray of water droplets. The noise of the cascading water made talking a challenge. It was beautiful, though. He saw Steve had his gaze fixed on the waterfall, probably already planning a sketch of the location.

Pascal was the last to descend into the chamber, bringing all seven of them to the same place for the first time since they'd entered the cave. "We're making good time! Halfway there already!" he announced as his feet hit the floor, shouting to be heard over the waterfall.

Tony checked his watch: nearly three hours gone, and on a quick rough count, they'd come down over 300 feet from the entrance. He would never have guessed it had already been that long, and he had almost entirely forgotten they were here for a reason other than enjoying the scenery and the physical challenge.

"If everyone's feeling suitably chilled, we should keep going," Adele called out. "I promise the next bit will warm you right up."

She was gesturing at what seemed like a crack in the wall of pale brown rock behind her, but as they huddled closer, was revealed to be a chasm with a short, worn rope leading down a dozen feet. The space looked quite narrow; Tony could see that it only afforded room for one person to pass at a time, and it would be a tight fit, at that.

"Ah, the meanders, with curves in all the right places," Felix said, his voice almost inaudible. Tony wasn't sure whether he was being sarcastic or not.

Steve was eyeing the fissure suspiciously. "So, it's going to get quite cramped in there?"

"It's not that bad," Pascal promised. "There are multiple routes, you can always circumvent anything that's too tight."

"I prefer to go along the floor and keep low," Adele said. "I find it less strenuous and easier, but if you're bigger, that's not the best way to go."

"I'm definitely not following you, then," Steve said.

"I'll be taking a more spacious way around," Felix said. "There's more climbing, but none of it is difficult."

"Suit yourself—and try not to slip!" Adele said mischievously.

"At least I'll keep my feet dry," Felix returned.

Adele grabbed the rope with both hands and dropped into the chasm—there was no need to rappel such a short distance, with the walls close by.

"Less strenuous and easier sounds good to me," Pepper announced, and pushed forwards to follow right behind her. She wasn't much bigger than Adele, so she was unlikely to have any trouble following her guide.

Tony considered his alternatives. He didn't know how tricky the next section of cave would be, but in any case, it would make sense to try and split up the team evenly so they could move forwards as fast as possible. Looking at himself and the four other men, he quickly came to the conclusion that he was a good candidate for the less spacious alternative—Pascal was roughly his size, Felix was definitely bigger, Rhodey had wider shoulders, and Steve was Steve. That settled it, then.

"I think I'll follow the ladies," Tony said, and went after Pepper.

At its bottom, the meandering chasm wasn't quite as narrow as it had first seemed, but it was tight enough. He had to advance sideways, with his bag slung on one shoulder. It still kept snagging on knobs in the walls. Water from the cascade trickled into the chasm, forming a stream at his feet, less than ankle-deep most of the time, but with deeper pools here and there. He was glad for his waterproof boots. Then again, with the speed they were moving at and the constant twists and turns, there was little risk of getting cold, just as Adele had promised.

Ahead of him, Pepper was practically sprinting forwards to keep up with Adele, who never seemed to slow down at all if she could avoid it. Tony assumed Pepper was copying the moves Adele was making, and tried in turn to mimic what she was doing, stepping on ledges here and there instead of staying at the bottom whenever the chasm got too narrow. They never climbed very high. When he had enough room to turn his head and look back, he saw Pascal had climbed to a level higher than Tony's head, his feet on one side of the chasm, his hands on the other. It seemed like all the other men were taking the higher route.

Pepper had slowed down so that Tony caught up with her, to find her inching her way through a particularly tight section, a bump in one wall creating a very constricted gap. She was frowning, focused, not looking at him, but she slipped through without too much effort, it seemed.

Tony followed with some trepidation. He might be one of the slimmest men in the group, but he was still significantly larger than Pepper. He swallowed, breathed out, settled his back against the cold, smooth rock, and pushed forwards. It wasn't that tight, and he wasn't _that_ big. He'd get through fine. He went in right shoulder first, and was doing just great.

He was almost through when the unyielding metal of the repulsor pump cover jammed against the rock, a jarring feeling that made him flinch, his heart skipping a few beats with just the suddenness of it. What kind of an idiot he was for not taking the cover into account?

He must've made a sound, too, because Pepper called out, "Tony? You all right?" in a clearly worried voice, taking a few steps back to stand right next to him at the other side of the squeeze.

Tony gave her a rueful smile. "Never better, though my pride is quite wounded."

There was no way he could actually damage anything by scraping the cover against rock—that was the whole point of it—but he was definitely not going to try and push through with brute force. It would be physically impossible, anyway; there wasn't the fraction of an inch of extra space. Not enough room to even breathe normally. He backed away from the tightest part with an unhappy huff.

"I'm not going to fit through," he told Pepper, who was now peering at him through the constriction.

"You could climb over it," she suggested.

The walls were unfortunately smooth, the first good ledges far above his head, where Pascal had also stopped to glance down at him. Just what he needed: an audience! Tony made a face. "That doesn't look like a realistic option," he said.

Looking at the passage between him and Pepper, he realized the bump in one wall that made the passage so confined didn't go down all the way to the floor. There was a lot more room down there. He'd easily fit through.

Letting out a resigned sigh, he crouched to the floor and settled in the stream on his right side. His ego had definitely taken a blow, he thought, as he slithered beneath the tight bit, managing to splash cold water all over himself.

  


************************

  


_October 20, 1945  
Dent de Crolles (The Auto-Route)_

_So far, so good! We have covered over half of the distance on the way to our mysterious objective, and everything has gone smoothly. The cave has offered us varied challenges, both vertical and horizontal, from climbing to crawling, and we have overcome all of them, unscathed, if a little scraped, battered, and covered in mud. I could devote an entire paragraph to mud. It is there even when you don't realize it, coating every rock and all of our clothes—even finding its way under them. It is easy to understand why our guides are wearing coveralls instead of the coats and pants we picked. I ended up smearing a fair amount of the stuff on my face when trying to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, under the helmet. If mud baths are as good for your skin as they say, I expect cave explorers never get wrinkles._

_Looking back, I think the meanders, which surprisingly have no specific name, felt like the longest part of the way in, an endless series of so many narrow twists and turns it almost made one seasick. The only respites were the occasional boulders we had to duck under or climb over, and a few ropes here and there to help us descend a particularly tricky section. But now, finally, we have reached some larger, easier passages, which should soon bring us to our goal._

__

*********

Steve found himself negotiating the narrow crevasse in last position. He had nothing against that—he appreciated having the time to think, and not having anyone breathing down his neck. He didn't find the going particularly difficult, per se, but although his strength and agility were well matched for every challenge, he wasn't used to the feel of climbing on slimy limestone with heavy hiking boots.

Waiting on a fairly solid set of foot and handholds for Felix to tiptoe over a tricky part of the canyon, at least thirty feet above the floor, Steve was suddenly sure he'd picked up the sound of a voice behind him. He strained his ears.

For a minute or so, he heard nothing but the bubbling of the stream below and a few colorful words of muttered French from Felix, but there it was again. It sounded like a woman speaking, much too distant for Steve to begin to make out words, or even what language it was.

"Did you hear that?" he asked Felix.

Felix, who seemed to have finally found more substantial footholds, turned to look at him, one boot on each wall. "Hear what?"

"Sounded like someone talking, behind us."

Felix shook his head. "Ah, you are new to this, aren't you? I'm sure that's just the cave playing tricks on you. Happens often, especially with running water," Felix said reassuringly. "I can't count all the times I have been sitting alone in the dark, waiting for my companions to show up, and been convinced I hear their voices, only to find out later that they were nowhere near me."

Steve pursed his lips and would have shrugged if he hadn't been holding onto things with both hands. He was pretty sure he had actually heard something. Maybe there were other people visiting the cave? From what he'd gathered, the local mountaineers came here often enough, and sound could probably travel in strange ways in all the interconnected passages honeycombing the stone.

He stayed particularly alert after that, constantly on the listen for more signs of someone following them, but couldn't catch anything. Besides, he had to dedicate most of his attention to moving forwards. On the ropes, they had been advancing in a concertina-like fashion, needing to stop and wait for their turn whenever they reached the top of a new shaft. Now, they were moving ahead slowly but steadily, following the course that the stream had carved into the rock.

They came across a few roped sections here, as well. The lower and upper routes that the party had split to came together at the top of a yawning chasm, which they traversed close to the ceiling, following a horizontal rope. There, Felix told Steve there that they were moving into almost uncharted territory, the new bit of cave that the four French cavers had discovered right before calling Tony in.

Two rope shafts leading down, separated by an easy, walking size passage, finally placed them in a tunnel that was larger than anything they had seen in hours, almost as large as the one they had entered the cave through. Three or four people could've walked abreast, there.

"Is it not magnificent?" Pascal asked them, his voice low, his expression awed. "Aside from passages close to the surface, there are few that are this large that we know of. Imagine our surprise when we first set foot here! I had lost hope of ever finding such grand galleries in the system."

"It's very impressive!" Pepper replied appreciatively. "Does this place have a name?"

"The jury is still out," Adele said. "If it turns out to connect to the bottom entrance at the Guiers, like we very much hope it will, it's going to be the Auto-Route! If it doesn’t, we may need to reconsider."

"It will," Pascal said defensively. "It will, it must. The water that came through here must have gone somewhere, and the only way out of the mountain that is in the right direction is through Guiers Mort."

Felix clapped a hand onto Pascal's back. "We're not doubting you, old friend, but you do know the Dent doesn't always play by the rules we think it should."

"Anyway, that is for another day," Pascal said, his expression lightening. "Before we can proceed any further, we need to deal with the present mystery. This way," he motioned onwards, along the passage.

After their tediously slow progress in the meanders, they practically flew through the large tunnel. The floor was strewn with boulders in many places, but Steve found he could, instead of stopping to test each of them to see if it was stable, just dash over them quickly, so that it didn't matter if a few of them shifted under his feet. Curiosity added some spring to his steps, he thought, and Tony's, as well. They were getting close to their enigmatic goal. The two of them were walking side by side now, with Pascal and Adele ahead of them, Pepper and Rhodey behind, Felix bringing up the rear.

They only slowed down when the nature of the passage around them began to change: it became a little smaller, the ceiling lower, and strange, coral-like growths appeared on the walls. They didn't look like rock at all, but rather like something organic, in places the muddy brown color of the walls, in others, pure white. As if from an unspoken agreement, Steve and Tony both stopped to take a closer look.

"Is that some kind of fossil?" Steve asked. He'd never seen anything like it.

"I don't think it is," Rhodey answered from behind his shoulder, also staring at the wall, clearly intrigued. "I think it's calcite, just in a very curious form."

"That's what we think, too," Adele joined the conversation. "We're going to try and study some samples more closely. We've seen somewhat similar things in other parts of the cave, but nothing quite as striking. We're calling this the Cauliflower Gallery."

"Perhaps not the most poetic description, but it does fit," Felix added.

"This isn't what we came to see, though," Pascal said, for the first time sounding a little impatient. "Had I wanted to show you spectacular calcite, I would've taken you across the valley to the Vercors. Come, now, we're mere minutes away!"

Tony raised his eyebrows at Steve, amused, and they turned to follow Pascal again. He was moving through the passage in long, hurried strides, not looking at the walls at all, with Adele taking a step and a half for each of his to keep up.

As he had promised, a few minutes later, Pascal slowed down, then moved to the side of the passage, and stopped to wait. "Here it is," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Adele had placed herself by the other wall, across from Pascal, giving Tony and Steve a clear view over the passage in front of them. Right at their feet, the floor dipped down, forming a crater-like depression with perfectly smooth sides. It filled most of the passage, leaving just boot-width ledges on both sides.

At the bottom of the strange, level-floored hollow rested an oval-shaped purple gemstone, polished smooth, smaller than Steve's palm, glowing with a soft purple light.

Next to him, Tony drew a sharp breath. His eyes had gone wide, his mouth open, his lips curled into an amazed smile.

"That really is something!" Tony exclaimed. "If it's what I think—could it really be?" He sat down by the depression, putting his legs over the edge, getting ready to slide down so he could get a closer look.

"You know what it is?" Pascal asked, urgent and hopeful. "Please, take great care if you approach. When we found it, I barely brushed it with my fingers, and the entire passage shook—it's not safe. That's why we left it here. We dared not try to move it. But perhaps you understand it better."

As the others spread out along the rim of the crater to watch, Tony dropped to its bottom and crouched next to the purple Gem. "I've read about something like this," he told the others, his both hands by the sides of the Gem, looking at it intently, but not making a move to touch it yet. "The Soul Gems, they're called. There is more than one. They're described as immensely powerful."

"Each with a different kind of power," Pepper added from where she was kneeling. "It does match the descriptions, and the few drawings that we know of."

"Good! I would've been annoyed if I had gone through all this trouble for some worthless bauble," called out a haughty female voice from the other side of the crater.

They all turned to look. A woman had appeared in the passage ahead of them. She was dressed in mountaineering clothes, helmet and headlamp, much the same as Steve himself, but her face put her apart from any other person in the room: it was covered by a green mask, featureless and smooth, a pair of cold blue eyes glimmering through its eyeholes. She pointed a gun at them, its muzzle aimed at Tony where he'd stood up at the bottom of the crater. As they watched, a man joined him, emerging from a smaller side passage in the right-hand wall. He was dressed in caver's attire, and he was slight, no taller than the woman, as skinny as Steve had been before his transformation into Captain America.

"Claude! What's going on?" Adele exclaimed.

The thin caver—Claude, their missing Frenchman—looked down, his shoulders hunched. "I'm so sorry. I had no choice. It was help them or get killed."

A second man appeared from the rift to join the two, dressed not in coveralls but a nondescript, mud-covered uniform. He was also holding a gun, which he pointed at Claude. "Want me to dispose of this one, now that we no longer need him, ma'am?" he asked.

They were all unarmed. They'd come prepared for the challenges of the cave, not expecting a fight. Steve was here as plain old Steve Rogers, his shield safely back on the airship in Grenoble, together with Tony's armor, watched over by Jarvis. Still, they by far outnumbered the enemies, eight against two. He was certain he, Tony, Rhodey and Pepper could handle these crooks easily. The only thing to consider was that if anyone got injured, the return to the surface would be long and painful.

"We still need to get out of here," the masked woman said. "We'd better keep him in case the others aren't as cooperative."

"Gia," Tony breathed. Steve could only see the helmeted back of his head, but the stunned disbelief was tangible even in that one word. "You're alive!"

"No thanks to you, Tony," the masked woman, Gia, replied, her tone glacial. "Now, be a good boy and bring me my prize."

"Didn't anyone tell you the war is over?" Tony growled at her, not making a move. "You lost. You and your Nazi masters, your story is over."

Gia stepped closer, the muzzle of her gun moving away from Tony to point at Pepper instead. "It doesn't have to be! With that Gem, we will rise to greatness again! Now, move, or I will start picking out your friends one by one until you do."

Very slowly, Tony crouched. Steve was sure he was feverishly trying to come up with the best plan, to decide what to do next. 

"No! Tony, don't touch it! It's not safe! You can't give it to her!" Pascal cried out.

A gun went off—not Gia's, but her henchman's—and Pascal fell on his knees, his left hand clutched over his right side. Felix took a step closer, but froze at the sound of Gia's commanding voice.

"You stay right where you are! Every single one of you!" she shouted, and leaped to the crater next to Tony, slamming the butt of her gun to the side of his face. He staggered backwards, colliding with the nearest wall. She crouched, her fingers blocking the purple glow as they closed around it.

Steve wasn't going to let her just grab it. He jumped down as well, aiming a kick at Gia. He was too late to stop her—she drew back, the Gem in her fist. She raised her other hand, the gun still in it, pointing it at Steve. There was an ominous rumble staring somewhere deep, right at the edge of Steve's hearing. Tony had gotten back on his feet, moving closer. Steve grabbed her hand just as she tried to shoot, sending the bullet uselessly into a wall.

A purple glow filled his vision, the rumbling stopped, and everything disappeared. He felt like he was falling.

He tumbled to the ground, landing in a heap, confused out of his wits. The glow was gone, but his lamp was still on, its light falling on rock that was lighter in color than he it had been just a blink ago.

"I'll be damned," Tony swore next to him.

The sound of running footsteps caught Steve's attention. Both men quickly found their feet. Standing up, Steve got a better view of his surroundings. There was no sign of any of the Frenchmen, nor of Pepper or Rhodey. The passage they stood in was slightly smaller than the previous one, almost circular, with a smooth floor, and there were no corals on the walls.

"What the heck just happened?" Steve asked.

"I think we teleported," Tony said, sounding impressed. "That'd be the Gem. We can't let her get away with it."

Gia already had a few dozen feet on them, disappearing behind a curve in the passage. They sprinted after her.

Steve didn't wait up for Tony, but bolted off at full speed. The floor was slippery, glistening with wet mud here and there. He didn't let that slow him down, skidding over the mud. He was easily gaining on her.

Just when he'd almost reached her, where the passage hit another sharp turn, she suddenly stopped. Slowing down, he realized why: right where she stood, the floor of the passage disappeared, dropping into a deep shaft. There was even an anchor ring in the wall for rope, though there was no rope hanging from it.

"Don't move," Gia commanded, her right hand coming up to point the gun at Steve's chest. Her left hand was a tight fist, purple light escaping between her fingers where she clutched the Gem.

"You've got nowhere to go, Gia," Tony said from behind Steve, panting, as he caught up. "I bet you don't even know where we are, and it doesn't matter. You're at a dead end. Give up. Drop the gun, give me the stone, and we can try to find our way out." He was stepping forwards slowly.

Without another word, Gia aimed the gun at Tony's feet, and fired.

Tony leaped backwards, uninjured, thank God, but clearly taken aback by the warning shot that he hadn't been expecting.

"I said, don't move! I have all this power at my fingertips, and you think you've got me cornered? I can _think_ myself out!" Gia growled.

"If you could, why aren't you out already?" Tony asked, his voice steady. "I don't think you can control it. I doubt any of us could."

Behind her mask, Gia's eyes were flaming with anger. "I can, and I will!" she yelled, and raised her left hand. The purple light was growing brighter, a thunderous rumble resonating through the rocks around them again. Steve lunged at her, trying to wrestle the Gem from her hand. Everything had started shaking, dust falling from the ceiling. A wide crack opened in the floor next to them. The ground was crumbling beneath their feet.

Tony was shouting, but Steve couldn't make out the words.

Steve fell.

It wasn't like the last time: he wasn't falling through rocks, he was falling with them, everything around him a mess of mud and boulders.

  


************************

  


_October 20, 1945  
Dent de Crolles (The Cauliflower Gallery)_

_Just like that, they're gone! I can't very well say it's the single strangest thing I have ever seen on my adventures with Tony, but definitely one of the strangest. One second they are all there, at the bottom of that crater, Madame Masque holding on to the gleaming purple Gem, both Steve and Tony attempting to wrestle it from her grasp—the next, they have vanished without a trace, all three, and the Gem with them._

_For a good long while, we remain silent, just staring at the empty crater and at one another. The ominous rumble, like an earthquake building under our feet, has thankfully stopped now that they have vanished. Making use of the general confusion, Claude has managed to get the upper hand on the remaining Hydra henchman, knocking him out and grabbing his gun. Rhodey, who was on his way to help, ends up standing at the other side of the crater with Claude, keeping an eye on the enemy. Pascal is on his knees, his left glove covered in blood where he presses it against the bullet wound in his side. Felix has an arm around his back for support._

_Adele is the one to finally break the silence, noting resolutely that we need to get back to the surface. We'll be considerably slowed down by Pascal's injury, and Claude, who has no doubt been held at gunpoint by Masque, also seems the worse for wear. There is very little we can do for Tony and Steve. They could be anywhere in the cave system, or outside of it, for all we know._

_We haven't gotten very far when we hear and feel the ground tremble again, and for a passing moment, I think it means they are coming back. They don't. The noise remains distant, and after a while, it dies down. At least it gives us hope that they are still in the cave, somewhere._

*********

Tony woke up, and he couldn't see.

He blinked. His eyes were definitely open, but everything was pitch black. His head rested on a hard surface, his right cheek pressed against something cold, and he had the worst headache, the sort that hinted at nausea and dizziness as soon as he'd try to get up.

Moving gingerly, wary of bruises that he was sure to find, he rolled onto his back. At least all his limbs seemed intact: no stabs of pain to signal broken bones. He brought his hand to his chest, probing the repulsor cover, and thankfully, that seemed to have done its job, the pump running smoothly as ever—as attested by the steady throb of his pulse that his headache had taken on.

He raised his hand to rub at his eyes, and stopped just in time when his fingers brushed against the bridge of his nose, reminding him that he was wearing mud-covered gloves. He was lying on muddy rocks. Underground. In the dark, because he must've knocked out his lamp.

A couple of deep breaths and an attempt to focus didn't help him figure out the situation any further than that. He couldn't remember what had happened. They had teleported, they had chased Gia, and then—nothing. He had no idea how he had ended up lying on the ground. He must have lost some time. Had they teleported a second time? He couldn't remember. Where was Gia? And more importantly, where was Steve?

The cave around him was perfectly quiet, eerily so. _Nothing_ in nature was this quiet, without the slightest sound of wind or water, not one sign of life. No sound of breathing but his own, which was suddenly terribly loud in his ears.

He had been in worse situations, he reminded himself. A lot worse. He wasn't badly injured, civilization was only hours away, and there were people who would come looking for him.

He turned his head to the left, and found that the darkness wasn't complete, but cut by the faintest purple shimmer. Purple. The Gem. It couldn't be far from him. He needed to get to it.

Hoping with everything in him that his lamp was still functional, he flipped the switch. The sudden, bright light came with an equally brilliant flare of pain through his skull. He closed his eyes, squinting. He probably should've expected that.

When the pain had abated somewhat, the light a warm glow behind his closed eyelids, he tried looking again. He was lying on top of a chaos of boulders, ranging from fist-sized to car-sized. On the first glance, he couldn't see anyone else. He couldn't see the Gem, either. He looked to his right, moving his head very slowly, and found more boulders and a vertical wall a dozen feet from him, disappearing into darkness above, beyond the range of his light.

Suspecting that trying to stand might not be a good idea, he settled for getting up on all fours, instead. It felt bad enough, making his head swim. He must've taken a pretty bad blow. He ran his fingers over the side of his helmet, and sure enough, the metal was dented just above his right temple. He shuddered. Without the helmet, that dent would've been on his skull.

He started making his way towards the faint purple glow. It wasn't easy to pinpoint, and he dared not move very fast, both because he felt so dizzy and because not all of the boulders were entirely stable. Even some of the larger ones shifted disconcertingly under his weight. He had to test each one to make sure it'd hold before moving on.

The Gem sat on top of a rock that was slightly lower than most, easily within reach. He was wary of touching it. He took his handkerchief from his pocket, and dropped it on top of the Gem. Then, trying to keep his touch light and his mind clear of all thoughts, he closed his gloved fingers around it. Nothing happened. No distant rumble or sudden changes in scenery. He wrapped the Gem in both the handkerchief and his glove, and placed it in one of his coat pockets. He'd rather not have kept it on his person at all, but he no longer had his pack, so he didn't have much choice.

The Gem was safe. He sighed with relief. He really felt like lying down again and resting for a bit. Maybe he'd feel better. It was a little chilly; he was distantly aware that his clothes had never entirely dried after he'd gotten them wet, crawling in water in the narrow meanders. He didn't mind. He just wanted to close his eyes.

Without consciously deciding to, he ended up slumping down on his stomach, his cheek resting against one arm, and he would probably have drifted off if it hadn't been for the voice calling his name that instantly grabbed his attention. Steve's voice.

His head feeling a lot less foggy, he got up on his hands and knees again. "Steve? Steve, where are you?"

"Tony," came the reply in a tense tone, from somewhere to his right.

Tony crawled towards the sound. He still couldn't see Steve. That didn't bode well. "Keep talking, okay?" he said.

"Over here," Steve said. It sounded like speaking was taking him a lot of effort.

The voice came from beneath him. There was a larger space between two boulders nearby, a vertical gap, and as he crept closer, he finally caught sight of Steve.

All he could see were Steve's head and shoulders, and his right hand where he'd grabbed hold of the rock in front of him, not quite at the upper edge of it, but some twenty inches below. It looked like he was wedged between the boulders. His light was off. He craned his neck to look up at Tony, the crinkles around his eyes speaking volumes for how much pain he had to be in. Captain America could take a lot of pain; he had a healing factor, he was used to getting hurt, getting over it and just going on.

"Steve! Are you… Ah, that's a stupid question, clearly you're not all right. Can you move?" Tony asked urgently.

"Not a whole lot." Steve grimaced, and to demonstrate, made an effort to pull himself up with his right arm—his left seemed to be hanging limply by his side. He didn't budge an inch. "Ah, damn it. I can just reach a ledge with one foot. The other is—kind of useless. Left arm is also useless, and I'm stuck pretty tight. You okay?"

Trust Steve to ask that despite his precarious position and all the pain he was clearly in. "Yeah, fine," Tony said. Complaining about a headache would've felt ridiculous. "We need to get you out of there." 

He looked around. The rocks pinning Steve in place were far too big for him to consider moving them. Had he had his armor, he possibly could've, but the armor was in Grenoble. It could've just as well been back in the States for all the good it did there. With ropes and a few bits and bobs, he might've been able to set up some kind of a pulley system, but that wasn't going to happen, either. He didn't have any rope. He wasn't even sure where his pack was.

The rock he was currently lying on, in front of Steve, felt very stable, not moving at all when he shifted his weight on it. Without really thinking things through, he went to push at the rock behind Steve. It wasn’t quite as stable; it gave, ever so slightly, and then fell back into position. Steve yelped.

"Sorry, sorry," Tony said, horrified. "Sorry. I didn't think. I'm an idiot. Are you okay?"

"No worse than before. You could've just asked," Steve said, a little breathless, accusing. "I could've told you it moves."

Tony considered the space between the rocks. Steve obviously couldn't force them further apart, but it should be easy enough for Tony. Assuming the moving boulder would behave and not, say, suddenly decide to tip over some critical point and cause another cave-in.

"If I push back the rock behind you, do you think you can manage to climb up from there?" Tony asked, hoping very much that the answer would be yes.

Steve gave him a little nod, his mouth a tight line. "I'll manage."

"Do you need to rest for a moment first?"

"Just get on with it," Steve said glumly.

"Okay. Let's do this."

Tony turned so he was sitting down, facing Steve, braced the soles of his boots against the tilting boulder, and pushed. He could only force it back a few inches. It'd have to be enough. "That's as far as it goes," he told Steve.

Steve didn't reply. His face twisted into a grimace as he strained to pull himself up on his good arm. Tony couldn't see his feet, but he heard Steve's boots scrape against rock as he tried to find footholds. He just needed to get a little higher, and he'd be able to reach the top edge of the boulder Tony was sitting on. It would've been much easier if there'd been more space; Steve could have leaned against the boulder behind him, his feet against the one in front, and chimneyed his way up, but there was nowhere near enough room for that. It wasn't going to work like this.

"Grab my hand," Tony offered, reaching towards Steve. His thighs were starting to tremble with the effort of holding the boulder in place—he hadn't realized it'd be this strenuous. Still, he wasn't about to give up before Steve was free. Steve's fingers closed around his left wrist, and Tony grabbed hold of Steve's forearm with both hands, and pulled. The added effort made his head feel like it was going to split. He grit his teeth and leaned backwards.

Steve was moving. Tony felt Steve's weight ease off his arms. Steve’s feet must've finally found purchase against the rock. With that, he pushed himself up, so suddenly that Tony tipped over and fell onto his back. Tony let go of the boulder as well, bringing his legs up, and it fell back into place with a resounding clunk from somewhere deep, testament to how big it must be.

Steve landed on top of him with a groan that sounded half relieved, half pained. For a moment, they just lay there. Tony closed his eyes against the headache. It helped to have Steve against him, soothing, warm and alive. He placed a hand on Steve's back, feeling the movement beneath the fabric as Steve breathed. Things could've been so much worse. Steve could've been under those boulders instead of between them, and there would've been no way to help him.

Tony might have been starting to drift off when Steve shifted, moving away from him, with a hiss of discomfort through his teeth. Steve was injured, maybe seriously, and Tony needed to see if he could help. Then, he needed to figure out where they were, and what was going on.

Steve sat up, and Tony followed suit. This time, he had the presence of mind to avert his gaze as Steve tried to turn on his lamp. It remained dark.

"All right, that'll be problem number one," Steve said.

"We can get along with my light, if I can't fix yours. I would hardly put that at first priority," Tony said, his eyes skimming over Steve's upper body. "How badly are you hurt?"

"I'm pretty sure my shoulder is dislocated," Steve said, grimacing, bringing his right hand close to his left shoulder, then seeming to think better of it and not touching it.

"Ow," Tony said, wincing in sympathy.

"And I'm also pretty sure I've broken a bone or two in my left foot," Steve added, sounding ridiculously calm about it. As if he were talking about the weather. Tony thought he’d probably have been squirming in agony had he had all the same injuries himself. "But all in all," Steve went on, "It could've been a whole lot worse, so I guess I should be grateful."

"Damn," Tony swore. He crouched by Steve's foot, but with the heavy boot he was wearing, it was impossible to say anything about the shape his foot might be in.

"Leave it," Steve said, obviously guessing that Tony was considering whether he should take it off. "At least it offers some support. It'll heal okay anyway. It'll be easier to move with the boot on."

That, coincidentally, answered another question that had been on Tony's mind. He raised his gaze to meet Steve's. "So, you think we should head off and look for a way out, then?"

"Unless you have a better idea, yes. At least we'd stay warm," Steve said—talking about "we" although Tony knew the cold would incapacitate him long before it got to Steve, unless Steve’s injuries played havoc with his usual cold tolerance.

"Not really. Not until I've got a better idea of the overall situation. You, uh, wouldn't happen to know where we are?" Tony felt a little foolish having to ask that, but there was no way around it.

Steve's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why would I? An unknown passage caved in on us, of course I don't."

The passage had caved in—well, considering what the surroundings looked like, that shouldn't have come as a surprise. "What happened to Gia?"

"You were there," Steve said, his expression growing even more suspicious. "We all fell. Why are you asking these things?"

"I may have lost a few minutes," Tony admitted. "Hit my head."

"Tony! That is _not_ fine by any definition!" Steve exclaimed. 

"Did I claim I was?" Tony said, defensively.

"Actually, you did, back when I was stuck between rocks. You do still remember that, right?" 

"Of course I do." He wasn't about to forget the dreadful sight of Steve half buried between rocks. He couldn't, in all honestly, claim he remembered every word he'd said to Steve, though. His head was too fuzzy to keep track of details like that. "Anyway, yes, I have a headache. Not much we can do about that. Priorities: we need to set your shoulder. Then I'll fix your lamp, and we can start looking for a way out."

Tony was fully expecting that setting Steve's shoulder would be a horrific experience. He hadn't needed to deal with this particular first aid procedure before, but he knew it would be painful. They needed to do it, though; Steve’s healing factor couldn’t kick in properly when the bones weren’t where they should be.

What he wasn't expecting was for it to turn out to be impossible.

First, he tried to simply rotate Steve's arm outwards, bent at the elbow. He was pretty sure it was supposed to work, but all it seemed to do was to make Steve grimace even worse, struggling to reel in the hurt, his face ghostly white in the cold light of Tony's lamp. For the third attempt, Tony had Steve lie down, so he could try pulling at Steve's arm instead. This time, Steve groaned aloud, and Tony let go and fell back.

"I—think it might be worse—than a simple dislocation," Steve said, breathless, still on his back on the ground.

"Or I'm not doing it right," Tony said despondently. Either explanation sounded as likely. Tony was no medic, and instead of helping Steve, he'd just hurt him more. "Sorry."

It was his damn fault Steve was here in the first place. He shouldn't have asked Steve to come. He should've been more cautious—shouldn't have just dismissed Claude Grosjean's absence as nothing, should have realized they were being followed—should've grabbed the Gem right away and not allowed it to end up in Gia's hands. They were stuck who knew where, in some unknown part of the cave system, maybe even an undiscovered one, one that no one would know to search in, and they could be hours and hours away from the closest entrance, if it was even possible to reach one from wherever they were.

It wasn’t so bad that he was stuck here. These sorts of things happened to him. All part of the job. Not the first time, not the last time. Rhodey and Pepper had been along on these trips many times before, they understood the risks, and they were paid for it, too, but Steve—Steve shouldn't have been here. Steve was here just as his friend, his lover, though one that was probably falling out of love, if Tony’s hunch was correct.

This wasn't Steve's quest. If Tony wanted to run around chasing artifacts to satisfy his curiosity or his thirst for exploration, or to fix his damn heart, that was not Steve's problem, and having Steve injured because of it was wrong. It was no excuse that Steve would heal faster than anyone else, as glad as Tony was to know that he probably would, thank God for the serum.

"Tony? Hey?" There Steve was, suddenly right in his face.

"Yeah," Tony said. "Sorry."

"This isn't your fault," Steve said slowly, weightily. "I'll manage. I've had worse. Try to focus, okay? You seemed kind of absent there for a minute."

"I'm focused," Tony lied. He didn't feel very focused at all. He felt dazed and dispirited. "Should we try with the shoulder one more time?"

"No, no, I think we should leave it as it is for now. How about you see if you can fix my lamp, instead?"

At least that was a challenge better suited for Tony’s skill set.

  


************************

  


_October 20, 1945  
Dent de Crolles (Trou du Glaz)_

_The way back after the incident with the Gem is long and tedious. Pascal's injury, though luckily only a graze, makes the meanders very difficult for him. He tries to push through the lower route with myself and Adele. It is a close fit in many places, as it had been for Tony, but with some assistance, he eventually manages it. Claude is moving quite slowly, nursing some minor injuries he's received at his captors' hands, but does not need help. Masque’s underling, whom we could naturally not abandon on his own in the cave, follows us in glum silence, making his way through the passages between Rhodey and Felix, who are keeping a very close eye on him._

_I knew in advance that going up would be much harder work than the way in, but even though I descended all these shafts, I still failed to fully appreciate the amount of ladders I would have to climb. The metallic rungs are thin and terribly slippery, and every step requires one's full attention. The first shafts Pascal is able to negotiate by himself, but he starts flagging, the loss of blood and the pain of the bullet wound getting to him, and soon needs to be hauled up by others._

_Darkness has fallen by the time we are back at the Trou du Glaz. We neither see nor hear any sign of Tony, Steve or Madame Masque on the return trip. Our friends may not even be in the cave system anymore, considering that the Gem's powers should potentially allow them to go anywhere in the world. But, I try to reason, had I been in Masque's position, I would have aimed for something close that I could be certain about._

_We have a somber conversation concerning what we should do next. Claude tells us that they camped overnight at Grotte Adele, a nearby cavern named after our friend who discovered it. Most of Masque's gear is still there, and, our Nazi prisoner admits, so are more of her men. Perhaps that's where she wanted to go. Then again, if Steve and Tony have ended up anywhere in the cave that they can recognize, they will try to make their way back to Trou du Glaz, where we now sit. We have left ropes and ladders behind, so they won't be stranded at the bottom._

_There is also the issue of Pascal's injury. He needs to return to the valley, and get his wound tended to. He assures us he can wait, but we refuse to listen to that. It'll still take a few hours of walking to reach civilization. Besides, once we reach the valley, we can call Jarvis in Grenoble and ask him to fly up with the Iron Man armor._

_We decide to split into teams. Less used to fisticuffs, the French cavers will take the more supporting tasks: Adele will accompany Pascal to the valley, and Felix will remain at the Glaz, keeping an eye on the prisoner and the entrance, in case our friends find their way back. Claude will guide Rhodey and myself to the nearby cavern, in the hopes of finding the missing people there. Even if we don't, we still have the Nazis to deal with. We're unarmed but for the pistol we confiscated from the prisoner, but we are confident that if we're cautious and plan our moves, we can manage._

*********

While Tony worked on Steve's lamp, Steve decided to try setting his shoulder himself. Not that he didn't trust Tony's first aid skills, but he suspected that maybe Tony hadn't used enough force, for fear of hurting Steve. Having a completely useless arm would make moving around in the challenging terrain near impossible. Unfortunately, it turned out that Steve couldn't set it, either, try as he might, and it was too painful for him to keep quiet.

"Steve?" Tony called out instantly, voice full of concern.

Steve sat up slowly, leaning on his good hand. "I'm okay. Just had to give it one more go."

He was okay, as long as he didn't make any sudden moves, and kept the arm on the injured side in a specific position. At least his left hand still felt warm and otherwise normal; that had to be a good sign.

Tony stared at him for a while, looking very unhappy and like he had something to say, but instead, he turned his gaze back to the lamp he had been working on.

There wasn't much for Steve to do while he waited. He looked around, assessing their surroundings. They wouldn't have many options to pick from when they started moving: even with Tony's lamp pointing towards his work, there was enough light to reveal that all directions but one were blocked by rock walls that went on until disappearing into darkness. In other circumstances, Steve might have considered climbing them, but with no rope and both of them injured, that was not an alternative. As for the one part of the passage that wasn't cut off by a wall, Steve couldn't see far enough to tell how it went on.

"Curse this goddamn useless thing!" Tony suddenly exclaimed, and Steve turned his head just in time to see him toss the broken lamp away. It bounced once, then disappeared into a hole between rocks.

"Tony! What in the blazes?" Steve protested.

Tony bowed his head and brought up a gloveless hand to rub at his forehead at the rim of his helmet. "It wasn't working. Wasn't going to work. Not without spare parts which we don't have," he said quietly. "Useless. Like me. Utterly useless."

It was plain to see that the blow to the head was getting to Tony, as much as he tried to hide it. A fine pair they made, each of them doing their best not to admit their discomfort. But where Steve's injuries were, as far as he could tell, painful but not life-threatening, he couldn't be certain about Tony's. Head injuries could be insidious. Steve would need to keep a close eye on him.

He crawled closer to place his good hand soothingly on Tony's back. "It's fine. Don't worry about it. We can manage with one light, you said so yourself."

"Right, right, I did," Tony repeated, making Steve wonder, concerned, whether he actually remembered doing so.

"I think we should try to move," Steve said. "At least try to get away from these boulders."

They decided against standing up. Many of the boulders moved, and crawling on hands and knees—or, in Steve's case, on one elbow and one leg—was the safer alternative. It was slow and agonizing, and in places very tricky, but finally, they reached the point that marked the edge of the cave-in. The boulders formed a slope, maybe fifteen foot high, that ended on a level floor.

Tony had to go down first, there was no question about it— he had four perfectly working limbs at his use, after all. He took a while to look for the easiest path, and then led Steve down the same route. Steve could've done it on his own, but he didn't mind having Tony's steadying hands guiding his good foot to a level spot and keeping him in position. Soon, they were both sitting on one of the lowest boulders, their feet on familiar cave floor: uneven, slippery with mud, but solid.

As luck would have it, the passage ahead of them wasn't one of the easy, level-floored ones Steve had been hoping for. It was at least twenty feet high and ten wide, but the middle of the floor dipped down into a chasm, with three-foot ledges on both sides. Steve almost missed the rope at first, since it was the same color as the rock, a mud-covered brown, but there it was: a horizontal line on the right wall, securing the passage along the ledge.

"There's a rope!" Tony exclaimed, sounding hopeful for the first time since the cave-in. "We're in a known part of the cave!"

"There was also an anchor point at the top of the shaft," Steve said. Of course, Tony wouldn't remember that, if he couldn't recall anything that had happened immediately before the rock fall. "I didn't realize to mention it, sorry about that."

"This completely changes things! It's a place that's visited so commonly they've even left a rope in place, it must be one of the main routes through the system! All we need to do is to follow the trail people have left. If we're lucky, we'll end up at one of the exits, or run into someone looking for us," Tony said.

Excited by the suddenly far more promising situation, Tony stood up, perhaps a little too quickly. He closed his eyes, looking queasy, until he seemed to find his equilibrium and opened them again.

"It won't be easy, but maybe it's not as bad as it seems," Steve commented, eyeing the passage ahead.

Tony offered his hand to Steve. "You think you're up to it?"

"At least I'm going to try," Steve said. He set his good foot firmly on the ground and pulled himself up with Tony's support. Standing was all right, but he wasn't so sure about walking. "Help me to the nearest wall."

Resting his right shoulder against the wall, he was able to limp the few steps to the start of the rope. Tony walked ahead, at the same slow pace.

It was plain as day that without the rope, the next part wouldn't have been doable for Steve. It was still a struggle, but having a constant handhold made it possible. They were making progress, step by agonizing step, following the ledge and the wall of the passage that seemed to be gradually growing smaller as they went.

They reached a step where the rope on the right-hand wall ended, to pick up on the left-hand wall. Though the chasm between the ledges had also shrunk somewhat, it was a long stride. He'd need both feet to cross.

Tony stepped across easily, and turned to look from the gap to Steve.

"I can do it," Steve said. He wasn't going to start doubting it. It was going to hurt, but he'd manage. "Give me a hand."

Fast would be best. He grabbed Tony's outstretched hand, swung his bad foot across, and in one quick move, placed his weight to it and brought his good foot over. He very nearly slipped, but Tony held on tight and pulled him close, helping him keep his balance. Steve reached for the rope with his good hand, steadying himself.

"Easy as pie," Steve breathed.

"Let's hope there aren't too many more of these to come," Tony said soberly.

There were a few more steps across the chasm, and as the passage grew ever narrower, they occasionally needed to put a foot on each side of it. A few of the easier sections lacked ropes. They took everything one step at a time, together, and as slow and painful as it was, they made it through. It must've taken hours, but finally, the chasm in the floor closed entirely, bringing them to a much smaller passage with a solid floor.

"Do you need a break?" Tony asked.

As slowly as they'd been moving, Steve's injuries were definitely starting to sap his energy reserves. He felt shaky and weak, and they were in no hurry. Tony looked almost as exhausted as Steve felt, leaning heavily on the wall, though he didn't need it to compensate for broken limbs. "Yeah. Let's stop for a moment."

"Okay, you take five. I'll go on and see what's next," Tony said, turning to face the narrow passage ahead.

That wasn't what Steve had had in mind. "Tony, you should rest, too."

"I'll rest when we're out of here. Back soon."

Steve thought splitting up was a terrible idea, but Tony wouldn't hear his protests. He headed off, moving so fast that Steve wouldn't have held a chance to keep up, taking their only light with him. 

Steve had little choice but to settle on the floor and wait. Soon, the glow of Tony's lamp was gone, and he was in pitch dark.

They were in a very dry part of the cave: the almost ubiquitous sound of dripping water was absent. There was only the faint whisper of the cold air current blowing through the passage. Steve could clearly hear the rustling as Tony moved away from him.

Keeping track of time was impossible. Soon, he could no longer hear Tony. If something happened to him—if he fell into a chasm, got hit by a falling rock, lost his way, Steve wouldn't know, and he'd be stuck where he sat.

After a while, he began seeing shapes in front of him. Like the colors on the backs of your eyelids with your eyes closed, though his were open. He raised his hand in front of his face, and he was certain he could see its pale outline as well, though surely that wasn't possible. He blinked, pressing his eyes closed tight, and the colors went away. His mind was playing tricks on him, with the complete lack of light.

The approaching scraping sounds were relieving and worrying at the same time. Though he told himself it was Tony, that it was good and exactly what he wanted to hear, he couldn't push back the sudden rush of adrenaline, a primal instinct yelling that he was alone in the dark, injured, in an alien environment, and some unknown thing was approaching him. The first sight of Tony's light finally dispelled that absurd dread.

Moving far slower than he'd done on the way out, Tony made his way to Steve and slumped down next to him.

"There's no way on," Tony said numbly. "It gets smaller and smaller and turns into this slanted rift, and we're never going to get anywhere that way."

That didn't make any sense. The ropes had brought them here, and they wouldn't be there for nothing. There had to be a way on. "Are you sure?" Steve asked.

"Of course I'm sure!" Tony snapped. "I spent ages crawling into every damn hole I could fit into. There was soot on the walls here and there, but there was no way on. Maybe for someone Claude and Adele's size, but not for us. That's it. We struggled over those traverses for nothing."

Steve tried to think of something to say, some alternative course of action, but the only other direction they could pick was to go back following the ropes, and that wouldn't achieve anything. They'd only end up back at the shaft that caved in.

"We'll figure something out," he finally said. "After you've taken a breather."

Tony sighed, tilted his head to rest the back of his helmet against the wall behind him, and for several minutes, they just sat in silence.

Exhausted though he seemed, letting Tony go to sleep might not be a good idea, not with the head injury. "Tony?" Steve began, just to get a conversation going, and to distract them from the seemingly hopeless situation. "That woman we fought—who was she?"

"Hmm, someone I'd rather not talk about," Tony said. "Someone I used to like. Turned out to be a Nazi. Not my greatest moment."

Steve had suspected it might be something like that. "You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to. Tell me about the Gem, then," he suggested instead.

Tony shrugged, his shoulder moving against Steve's uninjured one. "I don't know that much about it. Scattered mentions in ancient tomes, from several different cultures. Six Gems. I've never heard any clues as to their locations. I didn't think they were real. Might've gone looking, otherwise."

"Too bad we lost it," Steve said. He knew Tony would've loved to study that Gem.

"We—" Tony began. "Wait. Did I—"

He sat up bolt upright and started patting his coat pockets frantically, until he pulled out a small bundle that looked like his missing glove. "The Gem! Steve! _I have the Gem!_ " Tony exclaimed.

"What? How?" Steve stammered.

Unwrapping the glove revealed a smaller parcel—a handkerchief?—which Tony unfolded on his palm. In the middle of it sat the unmistakable smooth oval of the Gem, shimmering with its purple light.

"I forgot! I honest to God forgot. I found it before I found you, after the cave-in, it was right there, lying on the ground," Tony said. He chuckled, his expression almost manic. "I can't believe I forgot! Do you realize what this means?"

Going by the look on Tony's face, that was a purely rhetorical question. "You want to use it," Steve said.

"This is our ticket out of here!" Tony raised his hand with the Gem towards Steve.

"You told Gia that you don't think we can control it," Steve reminded him skeptically.

"She wasn't thinking very clearly, though, she was just lashing out, probably not even knowing what the Gem could do. It'll be different. I'm not going to aim far. Just to the nearest exit. It's going to be fine," Tony said.

As apprehensive as Steve was about this plan, he couldn't deny that it was the best shot they had at getting out. The other alternative would be to wait, and who knew how long it would take for anyone to come look for them in what no longer seemed like a major route through the cave, but rather like a remote corner only suited for the smallest of cavers.

"To the exit, and that's it," Steve agreed.

Tony removed the handkerchief, taking hold of the Gem with his bare hand. With his other hand, he reached for Steve's. "Off we go, then!"

Tony's fingers clenched into a fist around the Gem, his eyes closing, an intense look of focus taking over his features. It occurred to Steve that maybe he should've offered to wield the Gem instead—focusing and thinking clearly did not exactly go together with head injuries—but it was too late.

There was no distant rumbling this time, no sound of rocks shifting, no trembling of the floor. Instead, there was an odd feeling of weightlessness, of the world whirling past them at breakneck speed, until they came to a sudden, jarring halt.

They landed in a jumble of limbs, Tony on top of him, pressing so agonizingly into his bad shoulder that Steve reflexively pushed him away.

It was still dark around them, and just as cold as it had been. At first, Steve thought it might mean that they were outdoors and night had fallen, because they must've been underground long enough for that to happen.

"You've got to be kidding me! This isn't fair!" Tony groaned.

Steve sat up, and saw that the circle of Tony's light revealed nothing but boulders all around them. Far more of them than he'd seen after the cave in. He couldn't even see walls around them; all he could see were boulders, until the light tapered into darkness.

"Maybe it isn't what I thought it was," Tony went on, his hand again held in front of him, palm up, with the Gem resting on it. "Maybe it's some other artifact entirely. Who knows. Maybe its powers are limited to the cave." He slipped the Gem into his pocket, crossing his arms, looking thoroughly deflated.

"We could be close to an exit," Steve said, trying his best not to give in to useless despair. "Didn't Pascal say that most of the large passages are close to the surface?"

"Do you see an entrance around?" Tony said curtly.

Steve didn't, of course. All he could see were rocks, rocks, and more rocks. It would be just as difficult to advance here as it had been in the traverses; the terrain was extremely uneven, and it looked like they might need to occasionally climb over boulders. "I still think we should try to keep moving," he said. "Maybe we'll come across something."

As downcast as Tony seemed, he obviously wasn't about to quit any more than Steve was. They had that in common. "Yeah," he agreed. "If not for any other purpose, at least to stay warm."

So, they moved. They found a wall, and decided to follow it to the left, mainly because that way, Steve could lean on it. Lacking any landmarks, they could as well pick a direction arbitrarily. It was, as Steve had expected, very slow going, Tony scouting ahead for the best path and then lighting the way to Steve, offering support where it was needed.

At one point, the passage around them split into two. They picked the right-hand branch. It was still a wide tunnel, but they could see both walls now, and the floor was slightly more even. They still couldn't go very fast.

They were both stumbling. Steve came close to losing his balance every time his injured foot touched the ground. Tony was wavering on his feet. It had been a very long day, physically and mentally exhausting. In spite of what Tony had said, it seemed like moving wasn't quite enough to keep him warm—a few times Steve caught him shivering visibly.

On top of everything, the light of Tony's lamp had begun dwindling. Soon, it had shrunk to a small circle of light just around them.

Tony sagged to the ground, his back against one of the myriad boulders, taking his helmet off to stare mournfully at the light. Steve sat down next to him.

"We can't go on without light," Tony said, his voice hollow.

It was time to face the realities. "I think this might be where we stop and wait," Steve said.

He still did not want to quit, and Tony wouldn't, either, but it wasn't as if they had a whole lot of choice. They weren't going to get anywhere in the dark. The light was now so faint he could barely see past their feet.

"I do have another battery." Tony raised a meaningful hand to his chest. "I might be able to jury rig something."

"Absolutely not," Steve said firmly, appalled at Tony for even thinking about that. "We don't even know if we were moving in a direction that makes any sense. There's no way I'll let you risk your life on the off chance that we might come across a way out. No. I'll knock you out to stop you if I must."

Tony chuckled, though it was brittle and not at all amused. "Don't get all worked up," he said. "Just a thought, and not even a practical one at that. I'd need light to do it."

"Of course I'm going to get worked up if you start talking about self-sacrifice like it doesn't even mean anything! I need you to stay alive until we get rescued."

Steve took off his lampless helmet, slid a hand to the back of Tony's neck, and pulled him into a kiss—the first proper one they'd shared since they'd left the airship behind. Steve could feel the caked mud in Tony's mustache and Tony's lips were cold, but he hung on to it nevertheless.

Their lips were still locked when the light flickered for a few times, and went out entirely.

The darkness was as complete as it had been in the passage where Steve had waited alone. No hint of daylight or moonlight anywhere. If this passage connected to an exit, it was nowhere close to them. The silence wasn't as perfect; there was water dripping in the distance, the sound echoing in the vast chamber, but it would do them little good. They couldn't get to it without light.

Steve wrapped his good arm around Tony, keeping him close, and Tony pressed his head into the crook of Steve's neck. He was shivering constantly now, the slight tremors occasionally building up to more violent shudders.

"I'm sorry I dragged you here," Tony said softly.

"You didn't drag me, I wanted to come," Steve said.

"You only came because you wanted to be nice to me. Because you don't want to," Tony stopped mid-sentence, drawing a shaky breath. "Because you don't want to hurt me. It's okay. If through some miracle we get out of here, I don't want you to stay around because you feel obliged."

Steve had been fearing this conversation for a long time. He certainly hadn't expected to have it injured, in the dark, in some remote part of a French cave—and he hadn't expected it to go like this, because what Tony was saying was exactly what he'd wanted to say to Tony.

"I thought it was you!" Steve blurted out. "I thought—maybe this was just a wartime fling for you. Maybe you'd want to be with someone else now it's over."

"I thought _you_ would want to be with someone more appropriate," Tony returned. "Seeing as I'm the exact opposite of that."

"I don't want someone appropriate. I want you. I'd follow you to the Moon if you asked me to," Steve declared.

Tony's cool hand brushed against Steve's cheek, and they were kissing again. Cold lips or not, there was heat there that had been missing from the previous kiss. More than there had been in months.

"The Moon, Steve? Be careful what you wish for," Tony said, his voice almost a whisper, his forehead against Steve's. "I might take you up on that."

Fanciful daydreams of adventures that they might have together kept them entertained for a while, holding the oppressive gloom and the hopelessness of their situation at bay, but cold and exhaustion were slowly beginning to overwhelm them both. Steve's broken bones wouldn't begin to heal as usual when they were out of place, and when he was utterly out of energy, not having eaten much since breakfast. His shoulder was a constant deep ache now, his fingers starting to lose feeling, and his broken foot felt so swollen that he wondered how anyone was ever going to be able to remove the boot.

Soon, it wasn't only Tony who was in danger of drifting off; instead, Tony had to shake Steve awake more than once, when he hadn't even realized he'd closed his eyes. It didn't make any difference anyway, whether they were open or closed, when there was nothing to see.

"I'm selfish, Steve. So selfish," Tony mumbled, sounding only half awake. It had been some time since he'd stopped shivering, not because he was no longer cold, but because he was too far gone. "Still sorry I brought you here, but glad. That you're with me."

"I'm glad I'm with you too," Steve replied.

Up until now, Steve hadn't really considered the alternative that they might not be rescued. He'd thought, deep down, that one way or the other, they'd find their way out, or someone would find them. But time passed, surely measuring up to many hours now, and he was dazed with pain, completely unable to do anything, stranded in the dark. Slowly, the despair was beginning to creep up on him. Perhaps there would be no rescue. 

When he saw the distant gleam of light, he thought he might be hallucinating, but then there was the sound of stones rolling down, like someone dragging a hand through pebbles. The light grew brighter, into a halo of light around an unmistakable human figure, maybe a few hundred feet away.

And there was a voice, with a French accent, that echoed in the cave passage: "All right, I'm down, it is safe, you may come. Be careful."

Tony stirred against Steve's shoulder, muttering something indistinct, clearly not grasping what those sounds meant.

"Hey," Steve called out, his voice not half as loud as usual, his throat parched, his lips numb with cold. "Hey, we're here."

"Steve!" Peppers voice came accompanied by that same odd sound of pebbles. "Steve! Is Tony with you?"

"Right next to me," Steve shouted back.

"Oh, thank God! Stay put, we'll be right there," Pepper promised.

*********

_October 21, 1945  
Dent de Crolles (Grotte Cochet)_

_We defeat the three men Madame Masque has left in the camp, on the level ground at the porch of Grotte Adele. There is no sign of Masque herself, or of Tony and Steve. We advance some distance into the cave, which is quite an uninviting place with a lot of squirming in narrow passages, but see no living soul there. Once we are back under the cloudy night sky again, Claude mentions that there is another cavern close by, and we might as well visit it. We don't expect to find anything there; although the cavers have hopes for linking these caverns to the main system, so far, there is no way through._

_The entrance to Grotte Cochet is a hazardous slope of small, loose rocks that we need to descend in a kind of controlled slide—and as I'm sliding down it, I hear Steve's voice! We find the two men huddled not many hundred feet from the entrance, and however they have gotten there is anyone's guess until they can tell the story themselves. I'm shocked by the state they're in, perhaps more by Steve than Tony. This is hardly the first time I have seen Tony like this, barely clinging to the verge of consciousness, white as a sheet. But Steve, who is always the picture of health, and can face nearly anything—Steve does not look any better, and we have to all but carry him out, his injuries making walking impossible._

_It will not be possible for either of them to negotiate the demanding path down the mountain under their own steam, and even less so with the storm that is brewing. Instead, we light a fire, wrap them in blankets procured from Masque's camp, and give them warm drinks. By the time Jarvis appears in the armor, both men are slightly more coherent, though still as lethargic as I have ever seen them. It's good we found them when we did; I'm not sure how much longer they could've held on._

  


************************

  


#### Epilogue

Tony woke up on board the airship, thoroughly befuddled.

As had happened all too often before, he was hooked up to the repulsor charging cables. He was also buried under a mound of blankets. He had a dull, gnawing headache, and he felt run-down in a way that no amount of charging would fix. He was definitely looking at a few days of rest.

His first thoughts were of war. He'd been on a mission in France—in the mountains around Grenoble. And Steve had been there—but that wasn't right. He had never gone to Grenoble with Steve, not in the war. The war was over.

It came to him slowly: the exhilarating descent into the cave, the Gem, Gia, and the desperate journey through the dark with Steve. There were holes in his memories. The cave-in that he knew had happened was still missing, like a page torn from a book. The page that was their rescue was there, but blurred and hazy. He remembered sitting huddled by a fire, surrounded by people, a gale roaring in the background, and being carried by Jarvis to the airship through lashing rain.

The most worrying thing was, he couldn't recall what had happened to Steve.

He looked around, but saw no sign of him. Rhodey was there instead, his back turned to Tony, gazing out of the large windows. Heavy rain was spattering against them, the ship rocking in the wind.

Tony cleared his throat.

Rhodey spun around and was by his bed in a few quick strides. "Morning, Tony," he greeted, with a cautious smile. "Feeling all right?"

"Jim. I think I'll live," Tony replied. "Where's Steve?"

"He's in the hospital. They needed to do surgery on his shoulder. From what Jarvis told me, he had quite a debate with the doctors before he could get them to understand that it would all mend perfectly as long as they got the bones where they belonged," Rhodey explained. Clearly he was aiming for a reassuring tone, but it failed to make Tony feel better about it.

Steve was stuck in some French hospital, they'd had to slice his shoulder open to put it right, and it was entirely Tony's fault. Even if Steve had said, in the dark, when they thought they might not make it out, that he'd been eager to join the trip and that he wanted to be with Tony—that Tony's fears about Steve not wanting to be with him anymore had been unfounded—this was still not a situation he was at all happy with.

"I need to see him," Tony told Rhodey. It wasn't up for conversation; as drained as he felt, if he could walk, he had to be where Steve was.

"I knew you'd say that," Rhodey said. "Let's see if you can make it to the galley first, and then we can consider braving the storm."

When Tony pushed away the smothering blankets and found out that, not surprisingly, his upper body was bare and his tough, waterproof pants had been switched for soft cotton ones, it occurred to him that the Gem had been in his coat pocket.

"Where'd my coat end up?" he asked. It would've been all too befitting if that thrice-damned knick-knack had landed in the laundry basket.

"We have the Gem, if that's what you're thinking about," Rhodey said. "So, in that sense, you could say this expedition was a success."

Tony had thought the Gem had not worked, that maybe he'd been wrong about it, but they couldn't possibly have been very far from the surface when they'd been rescued. "When you found us, were we close to an entrance?"

"Not an entrance, but a cavern in the eastern face of the mountain that has yet to be connected to the rest of the system," Rhodey replied. "We were perplexed by how you'd gotten there, before Steve mentioned the Gem."

Tony had to shake his head at that. "Huh. I guess it really did work, then."

*********

Steve woke up in an unfamiliar hospital room.

His shoulder was bandaged, and it felt much better, clearly back to the way it was meant to be. The pain in it had changed from the nearly overwhelming ache that he remembered from the cave into a sharper, more localized one. He gingerly tested the range of movement, and found it somewhat limited, but already much improved from what it had been. His foot was in a cast, and barely sore at all.

The French nurse who came to check on him told him that he'd had surgery to fix the shoulder; it had been fractured as well as dislocated, and it was no wonder they hadn't been able to set it in the cave. Indeed, their attempts to do so had probably only made things worse.

Steve asked after his friends, of course—after Tony, most importantly—but the nurse announced that visiting hours had not begun yet and that he would have to wait. She did confirm that Tony wasn't in the hospital, which had to mean he couldn't be too badly off. Pascal, it turned out, was only a few rooms away, and doing well.

The doctor who showed up soon after the nurse looked like he was about to fall onto his backside after he'd taken a look at how the surgical wound was healing, and overall seemed very taken by Steve.

It wasn't until he'd had both breakfast and lunch that visitors were finally allowed in, and the first person to walk into the room was Tony. He looked far more tired than Steve felt, and his smile at seeing Steve was tight.

"Hi. Sorry I wasn't here when you woke up," Tony said as he settled into the chair by Steve's bed.

"Honestly, you look like you needed all the rest you could get. I'm just glad to see you're okay," Steve said.

"I'm good," Tony said, his eyes landing on Steve's bandaged shoulder. "Are you? Not hurting so much anymore, I hope?"

"Already on the mend, and feeling much better," Steve assured him.

They were being terribly formal, although there was no one else around, the door to Steve's private room closed. After what they'd been through, Steve thought, he needed more than that.

"Come here," Steve said, turned to sit on the bed, facing Tony, and grabbed him in a kiss.

Tony all but melted against him, the tension that had been evident in his posture beginning to dissolve, his chapped lips quickly going from gentle to desperately hungry against Steve's.

When they broke apart, Tony looked Steve in the eye, as serious as he ever got. "What you said in the dark," he began, his voice intense. "Did you really mean it?"

Steve felt a stab of annoyance at Tony for even having to ask; he had to remind himself that it wasn't an accusation towards him, but an expression of Tony's own insecurity. "You know me, Tony. I don't say things if I don't mean them," Steve assured him. He slid his both hands to Tony's arms, ignoring the twinge in his bad shoulder. "I don't regret coming here with you. If you asked, I'd come again. Actually, I'm hoping you will."

Tony grinned, far more relaxed and unreserved now, his eyes lit up mischievously. "Is Captain America considering a career change to the adventuring business?"

"I'd say the Captain is otherwise occupied, but Steve Rogers doesn't quite know what to do with all his time, now that the military no longer needs his services," Steve replied, and though he'd began saying it in jest, it actually didn't sound that outlandish. Steve Rogers could indeed use a job.

"Ah, yes. I've heard you're not half bad at art, Mr. Rogers," Tony said. "When can you start?"

"Get me a sketch book and I'll begin right away, Mr. Stark," Steve promised. "I have a feeling the staff here won't let me walk out today, no matter what I say, so I'll have a lot of time on my hands. I've got a number of exciting subterranean scenes in mind already!"

*********

The following months saw the return of Marvels, with a new hero, the adventurous artist called Steve Rogers, joining the ranks of the accustomed characters. Steve wasn't always there, of course, since his duties as Captain America often didn't allow him long leaves of absence, but for the rest of the time, he spent most of his time with Tony, becoming not just a regular visitor at his household, but a member of his team, which was the closest thing to a family that he had.

A year had passed since their escapade in the Chartreuse Mountains, a year with many other memorable, shared adventures, when unexpectedly, Pascal called Tony again. They hadn't had much contact, except for a few letters regarding the Gem, which Tony had eventually concluded to be an actual Soul Gem after all. It had caused him no end of trouble, and while it was currently locked in the most unbreakable safe in his deepest vault, he wasn't convinced it was secure.

"Bonjour, Tony!" Pascal greeted him. "All is well, I hope?"

"Pascal! Couldn't wish for better," Tony said. "And you?"

"I could say the same! I have great news." Pascal sounded as delighted as Tony had ever heard him, giving a good hint what the call might be about.

"You did it, didn't you?" Tony asked, the excitement catching. "You found a route to the top of the mountain!"

"We did indeed! After so many hours of work, we did! I can now proudly tell you that Dent de Crolles is the deepest cave in the entire world. All of 658 meters!" Pascal announced—around 2160 feet, Tony quickly calculated in his mind. "It is quite a slog to go all the way through, I must say, far more strenuous than what you saw last year."

"Oh? That sounds like a challenge!" Tony said cheerfully. "Any chance you'd offer to take us through?"

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr post for this fic can be found [here](http://veldeia.tumblr.com/post/146497498601/i-wrote-a-noir-cave-adventure-my-first-noir)!
> 
>  
> 
> **Research notes:**
> 
>   * The details on the Dent de Crolles cave system described here are based on personal experience and two books, Subterranean Climbers (Escalades souterraines) by Chevalier (1948), and La Dent de Crolles et son réseau souterrain, edited by Lismonde (1997).
>   * I tried to keep the details regarding equipment and techniques as historically accurate as possible. The technique they use for abseiling would probably be what's today known as [Dülfersitz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BClfersitz), but as it's only referred to as _rappel_ in Subterranean Climbers, that's the term I used.
>   * The French caving team are inspired by the pioneering explorers who made some of the main breakthroughs in the system, renamed, as the characters in this story are not meant to be exact depictions of historical people. For this reason, the cave entrances named after people, Grotte Annette and Grotte Chevalier, have also been renamed.
>   * The route our heroes take through the cave follows the modern day traverse from Trou du Glaz to Guiers Mort, which, in our reality, wasn't known in 1945, but was only discovered decades later (and does not contain a mysterious crater with an Infinity Gem). The passages named the Auto-Route and the Cauliflower Gallery in this story are actually known as Les Champs Élysées & La Galerie des Champignons.
>   * The cave-in happens at Puits Fernand, and the second teleport puts Steve and Tony in the massive main passage of Grotte Chevalier (in this story known as Grotte Cochet), which was eventually linked to the rest of the system, and was indeed the entrance closest to their location when Tony used the Gem.
>   * Dent de Crolles did indeed become the world's deepest cave in 1946. It didn't hold the record for very long, but its exploration was an important project that paved the way for many others to come. For comparison, the current cave depth record is held by the Krubera cave in Abkhazia, at 7208 feet / 2197 meters. 
> 



End file.
